Am I too young to write a will?

I’m in my early thirties, newly married with no kids. So for me, when I attended an appointment with a solicitor to write a Will, I couldn’t help feeling this was all a little premature. I thought writing my Will would come around the same time as claiming my free bus pass. I wanted my husband and I to be planning for our next holiday – not our death.

Although we’re the same age, my partner’s view was very different from mine. He reassured me: “It’s just a piece of paperwork, but it could make the lives of people we leave behind so much easier. It’s not really about you.” He was right, and he was speaking from first-hand experience.

My husband lost both his parents to cancer before the age of 31, his dad to pancreatic cancer and his mum to bowel cancer. He’s been through the agony that cancer causes, and has learned to live with the sudden holes in his family. He’s also dealt with the unwelcome administration of their passing, and so his view on writing a Will was simple: let’s not make it harder than it already is.

“It’s just a piece of paperwork, but it could make the lives of people we leave behind so much easier. It’s not really about you.”

Cancer takes the lives of too many of mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. I find myself hating cancer as if it were an alien or monster that Ridley Scott or Alfred Hitchcock has dreamed up. In this ‘film’ (in my head) we hunt cancer as it invades and destroys the bodies of our loved ones. We then celebrate its demise after a climactic battle of good against evil. But unfortunately this Hollywood fantasy is easier to deal with than the truth; when it comes to cancer, it’s not really an alien species attacking us, but our own bodies fighting against us. It’s a civil war of cells that can only be won with science on our side.

The latest research says, by 2020 around1 in 2 people will face cancer at some point in their life.That’s 50% of the population. Given my partner’s family history, this is a fact I’ve lingered on at length. However, there’s comfort in the fact that since the 1970’s, survival rates have also dramatically improved. This is largely because of the investment in research by charities like Worldwide Cancer Research who are supported by people like you.

So, when it came to writing my Will, I’ve decided to leave a little gift to help fund the fight. My husband and I don’t have much, but what we have is valuable to us. Knowing that our gift will be used to find better treatments and prevent future generations suffering from cancer makes me feel really good.

This week we launched a campaign to spread the word about writing a Will and leaving a gift to charity. It’s called #WillPower, because we know that Wills have the power to fund more cancer research (last year alone they funded 8 research projects). From my own experience, I now know that writing a Will doesn’t have to daunting, it’s not complicated, and if you want to, you can use it to help future generations.

You can get more information to help you write or update your own Willhere.